Karl Hermann Frank

Karl Hermann Frank (24 January 1898-22 May 1946) was an SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and a senior Nazi Party official in Czechoslovakia during World War II. He served as the acting head of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and he was responsible for ordering reprisals such as the Lidice massacre. He was tried and executed for war crimes after the war's end.

Biography
Karl Hermann Frank was born in Karlsbad, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) on 24 January 1898 to a family of Sudetens, and he was rejected from the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I due to an eye injury. He joined the national socialist Sudeten German Party in 1919 and distributed Nazi propaganda at a book store; he became the Sudeten German Party's deputy leader in 1935 and was elected a member of the Czechoslovakian Parliament. Frank became Deputy Gauleiter of the Sudetenland when Nazi Germany annexed it in 1938, and SS leader Heinrich Himmler made Frank an SS-Brigadefuehrer in November 1938. In 1939, he became an SS-Gruppenfuehrer and Secretary of State of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath, and he became Higher and SS Police Leader, making him its ranking SS officer. Frank harshly suppressed Czech dissidents and pushed for the arrest of Prime Minister Alois Elias, and he worked to discredit Neurath, who favored a "soft approach" towards the Czechs. When Neurath was fired in September 1941, Frank was disappointed that Adolf Hitler made Reinhard Heydrich the new Deputy Protector instead of him, but they became an effective and efficient duo, launching a reign of terror that saw dozens of opponents be arrested and killed and several Jews deported to concentration camps. After Heydrich's assassination in Operation Anthropoid in May 1942, Frank worked with new Deputy Protector Kurt Daluege to destroy the villages of Lidice and Lezaky in harsh reprisals, and he became Reich Minister for Bohemia and Moravia in August 1942. In June 1943, he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and General der Polizei in Prague, and he also became a general of the Waffen-SS. From 30 April to 1 May 1945, he announced that he would drown any uprising in Prague in a "sea of blood", and he ordered the streets cleared and for the soldiers and police to fire at anyone who disobeyed. Frank surrendered to the US Army at Pilsen on 9 May 1945, and he was convicted of war crimes and the obliteration of Lidice. Frank was hanged at the courtyard of Pankrac Prison in Prague on 22 May 1946 before 5,000 onlookers.